Image via some Rick Reily article where he did the same stupid thing only with stupid jokes about Matthew Matthew McConaughey movies.

You guys, the NFL is really worried about you staying home to watch games on television. And why shouldn’t they be? Sure they’re making $20 billion off of TV revenue, but at what cost? The cost of $12 beers and $40 parking, I guess. How big a problem is this for NFL executives? Concussion big.

Stephen Jones says there will be another pressing issue on the agenda: the increasing problem of getting NFL fans off the couch, away from their high-definition TVs and back into stadium seats.

“Everybody always says we have to watch concussions and all of that, and that’s at the forefront. But I’d say 1-A is this,” the Dallas Cowboys’ executive vice president and chief operating officer told USA TODAY Sports on Monday.

Oh, Stephen Jones. We really feel for you after you guys built that 80,000 seat albatross in the midst of the RedZone Era. Of course the availability of the NFL’s own RedZone Channel (in high-definition!) isn’t the only thing keeping fans at home. I was a regular at Redskins games throughout my childhood and adolescence, but I stopped accompanying my dad to FedEx Field years ago. And here is why.

1. Drunken redneck asshole fans. I love my team, but man, the gameday experience is for shit. Also, these people.
2. I get on the beltway to drive to Landover every day for work. Why would I want to do that on the weekend? The traffic and parking are fucking miserable, no matter what improvements they’ve made.
3. A $9 six pack of Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold will always win out over $12 of piss beer.
4. A coffee table filled with snacks from Trader Joe’s will always win out over some crab pretzel abomination.
5. Television replays, plus DVR functions allow me to watch players get concussed over and over again.
6. Multiple televisions/computers. I always watch the Redskins. I also enjoy watching everyone else. At once. Because I can.
7. There is nobody passed out in a pool of their own puke in my bathroom unless Drew comes over for the Vikings game.
8. I don’t have to miss Premier League soccer matches to make it to the stadium for 1 pm kickoffs.
9. I don’t have to miss most of the 4 pm games while sitting in traffic on the way home from the 1 pm game.
10. I’m obviously a huge yuppie pussy (see 1, 3, 4, 7 and 8).

To play a little devils advocate: the reason NFL tickets are so much more expensive is they have to justify paying for generally more expensive stadiums with SUBSTANTIALLY fewer home games to recoup that money (81 for MLB, 41 for NHL and NBA, 8 for NFL). Granted they aren’t coming out of pocket for all of the money for the stadiums, but that’s the justification.

That said, ticket prices are one of the biggest reasons I refuse to go to an NFL game, the other big one being that I like to watch as many games as I can and going to a Sunday game would pretty much make it so I had to miss the rest of Sunday’s games because I’m about 2 hours (with little to no traffic) away from the stadium and that stadium is located on the far side of NYC.

I appreciate your point crispy. I’m not much for fiscal analysis or justifying the cost either way, for me it just boils down to being lower middle class and consequently being pretty tight with my cost-value spare funds.

If I enjoy a live football game about the same as hockey and only a bit more than baseball (as is natural and right), I don’t see much point in spending 2 to 3 times the amount for the same MMCDR happiness amount.

In Denver I like to go to one or two games a year and that is it. There are a few things here; it is easy to get to if you do it right, some good beers available, the weather is most; likely great, even when cold it is still good if you are prepared. Brew pub first.

Don’t forget about corporate assholes. Before moving to Denver, I probably saw 8 Broncos games with free corporate tickets in great seats, including the Tebow playoff game and the Rahim Moore playoff game. I love the NFL, but I am indifferent about the Broncos, so it probably would have been better if some actual Broncos fan got to go (except for Moose, who should be kept out of public whenever possible).

My problem is if I want to see the Bills I have to drive over 4 hours to get to Buffalo and I have to go to Buffalo. My other options are going to watch them play the Pats or the Jets on the road, but that means sitting in a stadium full of Jets or Pats fans.

Bottom line: easier and cheaper for me to stay home and watch on my t.v.

Somebody should keep hitting The Rog with a hammer that says “TICKET PRICES” on it until he gets it through his ginger skull.

The NFL keeps adding bells and whistles to the stadium experience in order to justify the cost. “Wi-Fi!” “Big Screens!” “Fancy Shitty Food!” “A Peek In the Locker Room!”. STOP STOP STOP. Nobody has ANY fucks to give about any of this. The game was always fine. We just don’t want to pay that much to see it. Of course, that seems to be the only solution the NFL has completely ruled out.

We gave up Jets tickets this year. In part because myself and one other guy had our houses seriously damaged by Sandy and in part because the Jets suck and are owned and run by dickheads.

But also there was a time “the game day experience” was great. Get there at 10, tie on a load until 1250 and go inside(with a designated driver), tailgate a bit after and be home by 6.

Doesn’t work that way any more.

The new stadium has totally ruined it. The PSL was a ripoff. Despite paying $25-50 for parking you have to park far away. The road access is worse, which is hard to do. You are treated like a criminal when you enter by rent-a-cops. It takes forever to get to your seat and to get out. Would note most of the “luxury boxes” at Jets games are empty.

I have family who have Jints tickets,and it’s the same thing.(albeit with less fights and vomit). Also have a family member who is affilaited with a business involving the Mara family. Story goes that after their first visit to the Jerry Dome, the Jints’ high command called up their building team and fucking freaked out, asking what the fuck did they pay a billion dollars for, since by comparison to the Jerry Dome(and new Yankee, new Shea, the Rock, Barclays all of which have opened in NYC the last few years anda re superior in every way to this dump) Metlife is a shithouse. Where the fuck did they spend a billion dollars-nobody knows.

The NFL assumed it could hike the price forever and treat paying customers like criminals. They ignored basic economics; I’m not burning a day and getting fleeced when I can watch the same thing on my couch or at the corner gin mill for a fraction of the expense. Watch the crowds at Shitbox Stadium this year and suspect you will see a lot of empty seats and a lot of stubhub half face tickets sold. Buit the NFL is going to soften the blackout rules to not acknowledge the Shitbox is going to be very empty this season. Even if they black out the buttfumblers, they cannot black out RedZone.

A lot of what you said is true about Soldier Field, too. We used to be able to park pretty close to the stadium at a reasonable price, but after the remodel 2003, they turned all of the close parking lots into underground garages with parkland on top. You can’t tailgate in the parkland or in the garages, so you end up paying $40 to park south of McCormick Place, and then you have to take a school bus or walk two miles to the stadium (which you can’t even see from your lot). Also, they instigated PSLs, which resulted in fewer seats, which bumped all of the non-corporate ticket holders into the upper levels and further away from the field. Also, the put really crappy replay screens in the stadium, so it is hard to tell what happened.

A few of us split generational season tickets that were acquired when the Bears still played in Wrigley, and the Bears treated us like second class citizens. My friends still have the seats, but every year they talk about getting rid of them. As soon as the Bears aren’t competitive, I think they will.

That being said, I still love going to tailgate on a nice, crisp fall day to hear the crowd and home PA announcer and to get away for few hours, but that is mostly nostalgia, I think.

I know it isn’t the same, but going up for a Northwestern football game once in awhile is fantastic. Laid back and friendly fans (just happy to be competitive). Small, navigable tailgate area. Cheap tickets and almost all the seats provide good views.

1) It was a preseason game and free tickets
2) Green Bay is a two hour drive from the Milwaukee area.
3) Football is played on a Sunday, which isn’t that great considering school is the next day (or for now on, work)
4) Fall is a bad time of year generally for things, mostly school (and in HS, preps football)
5) Did I mention school the next day?

Yup. We spring for one game a season to see a game outside of LA, but since we have to figure plane tickets or gas, hotel, buying on StubHub, it gets expensive pretty quickly. I’d much rather just go to one game a season in my own city.

I’m just over it…ever since husband-murderer Georgia Frontiere took the Rams, I really couldn’t care less about having a team here. It’s better on TV, and when I’m really jonesing for it, I head to the Rose Bowl and watch the Bruins underachieve. Those Pasadena bitches are scary, but my taser keeps me safe.

The simple fact is that football is better on the TV. Outside of the emotion of the crowd and the experience, it is just hard to see what the hell is happening, especially from tickets in my price range.

Assuming I can get a Texans ticket for $50 (ha!), I’d still have to pay $20 for parking anywhere remotely near the stadium, then if I decide to get a drink and maybe nachos another $20 that’ll have to last me 3hrs. If I decide to take my family, x4. You tell me, Goodell, all that just so I can see if Kubiak doesn’t out-think himself on a 1st and 10?

Or….grab a pizza, bucket of chicken and a variety of beverages for $30 to watch on my comfy couch w friends on the HDTV? I’ll mull it over…

@HS – I won’t give you an earful on Schaub because there are only losers in “Oh, YOU got it bad?” contests. From what you and others describe, stadium gouging’s the norm. That, coupled with ever-more broadcast options, seem to weaken the owners’ wager that ticket buyers are a vast throng of prodigal saps. That seems adequate, until you realize that it’s management who’s airing concern: TV billions are hurting stadium revenue from inflated costs, bundling preseason tickets, and ethereal levies like PSLs (what, coupla millions?). That’s not even bullshit: it’s condescension and depravity. Yeah, increasing revenue is as elemental as business gets, but don’t complain you can’t eat more pie after gorging on cake.
Still, never having gone to an NFL game because the nearest stadium is half an ocean away, I yearn to be gouged. It will happen some day because I’m a fan, a sap who grinned like an idiot upon seeing that purty Oilers helmet. HS, I’d only judge your exquisite aesthetic taste.

@Sill – great stuff. It seemed like everytime there was football on when I was a kid, the Oilers were playing. I used to identify US cities’ industry/identity by NFL nickname. Miami, Sea World; Boston & Philly, history/jingoism; LA, cuckolds; St Louis, baseball; SF, numerology; Cleveland, no idea

Admittedly, I am simultaneously blessed to be born into a family who not only has Stillers season tickets, but a crazy uncle who owns an auto parts store about a mile from Heinz Field, which provides free parking. I’ll go to any game I can, even the utterly HERP-tacular fourth preseason “game.”

That said, I completely concur with everyone here. Watching games on TV is far easier, and you can simply throw up in your own toilet after being let down again (Jets fans), eating too much (Packers and Clots fans), or drinking too much (everyone). You also won’t risk indecent exposure or public urination (Steelers kickers).

One thing, I can’t be the only one who brings their own booze with them into the stadium. No way in Hades will I pay $7.50 for a warm, watered down Millet Lite to further enhance Herr Goodell’s Empire. Just fill a flask with Wild Turkey or Old Granddad, and drunk ahoy! Plus, it has the added thrill of knowing you’re sticking it to The Rog. I’M LIKE A SECRET AGENT.

Good grief. Of course Stephen Jones would say getting more fans to the stadium is immediately behind solving the concussion problem in the NFL. I love the Cowboys but I hate, hate, HATE Jerry and his shit for brains son.

Listen Cowboys Stadium is fucking awesome for the gameday experience. It would be even better if the team actually won more than 8 games a season, but I digress. Ticket prices are expensive across the board in the NFL and I’m sure our 400 level tickets to the Saints game last year were higher than most. When you combine ticket prices, PSLs, beer choices of MGD and Miller Lite–like Jerrah couldn’t swing a deal with Shiner or something, $10 buckets of popcorn and $12 nachos, it dramatically takes away from the fan experience. Pouring glasses of Maker’s Mark into Cowboys glasses for fans who didn’t want beer was a BIG positive though.

Anyway, the league is raking in hundreds of millions of TV dollars but they want us to come to more games to spend more money on a shittier experience. I’m sure that contradiction matters not to Mr. 1A down in Big D.

Even living within a 10 minute ride of Gillette (can walk back roads to get picked up by wife: no packing lines or fees (alas no tailgating), it would still require me to buy a ticket on stub hub (demand is sky high) meaning I am paying double face value; and beer prices are insane (9 bucks for 16 oz). Not worth it.

Going to games is exhausting. The level of drunkenness I have to obtain to feel comfortable enough screaming obscenities at Matt Schaub in public (if I’m going to a game, I’m gonna do it right) leaves me broke and unable to function for about a week. Plus, I seem to have misplaced my luchador mask.

“Freshman Chadd Smith knows why he’s hanging from his closet shelf by his fingers at three in the morning, with his legs bent and spread. It has to do with football. The Citadel hadn’t lost the Wofford game since 1958. In fact, it had never lost the Wofford game at home. But tonight it did. As usual, somebody has to pay. As usual, it’s the freshmen. That part he understands. What Smith wants to know is, What is it? What is that coldness I feel now and again down between my thighs?”

To this:

“Rex Ryan’s seat is hot
Mark’s been killin’ him
What hurts worse is
He makes 8 million”

Fed Ex Field sucks ass and it’s not just because the Redskins play there. Cheap-ass Dan Snyder crammed 90,000 seats into a space meant for 70,000. When anorexics have to squeeze into their seats, the seat’s too damn small.

Can only speak for Donkey games but park ‘n ride is the way to go. $12 for a round trip ticket on the bus. You go right to the stadium. Meet buddies that are tailgating for pregame then have the 30 minute bus ride back to your car to sober up or, in my case, keep drinking as I stumble down the bike path to my house. veni vidi vici.

If you’re lucky to live close to mass transit and have a city that does it right, it is indeed great. I made sure to move within walking distance to a Metra in Chicago. When I was a student at Purdue, we had a fantastic bus service that I used to get from home over to the other side of the river. I grew up in Indy, and ain’t no good mass transit there, however if you know where to go you can park free for Colts games if you don’t mind walking about a mile.